administration. mr. ambassador, mr. governor, thank you. vice president's language specifically chosen, deeply concerned. is that strong enough? >> well, i think that's appropriate terminology. it was spoken in tokyo where coordinating a lot of what goes on in the region with our ally, japan, and also with korea to some extent is absolutely critical at this point. and the language used was appropriate given the circumstances. now it will all play out in beijing as he meets with the new leader of china who he got to know on a personal level when they were vice presidents together. she served as vice president before becoming president of china. so they have a preexisting relationship. it is actually quite unusual for the head of china to accord this amount of time to the vice president of the united states. so he's giving him a private dinner. he spent two hours with him in a by lateral meeting. all of that presumably is taking us in a direction that defines some parameters around the drama that's pla